Tobias
by theweirdworder
Summary: Tobias has always listened to what his father says. But when an FBI agent is taken and tortured, he questions the morality of it. Feeling empathy for the stranger,Tobias does the best he can to help him. Tobias' POV during Revelations.


Tobias

Tobias didn't want the stranger to be there, even though he was a demon. Even though Father said it was God's will, Tobias has his doubts. It doesn't seem like it is in the way of God to keep him there, to hurt him this way.

Father said that the stranger had to eat, so he brought in a newly slaughtered lamb. Tobias hopes the stranger likes lamb, and that it will ease the way for what will come.

Blood runs down the side of the stranger's head, and the stranger's foot is bruised. He knows almost immediately that his father has been here, and was the one who hurt the stranger.

''What's your name?'' the stranger asks, his voice shaky and tentative. As he looks up at Tobias, his face is twisted in terror; his eyes and voice reveal that he is absolutely consumed with it.

Tobias feels something twist inside of him. He knows what this stranger is feeling. Terror frequently twisted his face, too; terror, too, had consumed him more times than he could count. He could vividly remember all of the nights he had spent shaking under the covers and unable to fall asleep, his father's latest punishment still shaking his core. He wasn't the only person his father had that effect on, Tobias supposes; it occurs to him for the first time that maybe he isn't a weakling.

''Tobias,'' he answers.

''Tobias,'' the stranger says, ''who was here before?''

''It was probably my father,'' Tobias answers, scanning the stranger. The pity and empathy he feels for this stranger doubles, as does the guilt in his own heart.

''I'm sorry if he hurt you,'' Tobias adds.

The words are ripped from his own heart, and he feels water start to well in his eyes. The stranger cannot see his tears, he knows, so Tobias looks away before the stranger can see him. As he had done many times in the past, Tobias swallows his tears and instead hastily focuses on his duty.

His duty, he realizes now, is to help the stranger. Tobias remembers all too vividly the bruises his father had inflicted on him, yet he also remembers the drugs that helped him so. He was planning to go get high later, but instead now knows the must give the drugs he has to the stranger. He doesn't believe that the stranger deserves this; if the stranger had to take the pain though, he deserves an escape from it.

''What are you doing?'' the stranger asks, as Tobias makes a tourniquet around the chair with the belt he took off himself.

''Please don't,'' the stranger says, his voice rasping in desperation and tears. With the look in his eye, this stranger manages to say everything with so little.

''It helps,'' Tobias tells him, in a tone that tries to reassure the stranger.

For the drugs do help. On the really bad nights, on the nights his father had beat him especially hard, Tobias would go out to the cemetery with them. He would escape with them, and forget everything. He would enter a world so much better than the one in which he lived.

The stranger instead looks down at the needle and the vial and starts to shake and whimper.

Tobias briefly hesitates. The stranger simply doesn't know, Tobias concludes.

''Don't tell my father,'' he says to the stranger, ''he doesn't know they're here.''

The stranger shakes harder. ''Please,'' the stranger pleads, ''I don't want it, I don't want it.''

''Trust me,'' Tobias says. His voice is strong and clear, although inside he hesitates.

The stranger whimpers one last time, before Tobias injects the needle. As he does, the stranger cries out one last time. Then his eyes roll over, and his head slumps back on the chair.

When Tobias again gives the stranger the drugs, a similar reaction occurs. Tobias doesn't understand the stranger's reluctance. All he can think about was the first time that he tried drugs. How relieved he felt, how happy the high made him, how addicted to the escape he already became.

''This will help you,'' Tobias says. ''Trust me.''

The stranger does not resist as much this time, but instead painfully scrunches up his face as Tobias injects him.

The third time Tobias is about to give him the drugs, the stranger does not react.

''Tobias,'' he rasps, his voice weak.

''Sorry, I had to leave for a while,'' Tobias says. Tobias realizes that he is starting to feel fondness for the stranger. The stranger seems so kind and good, not at all like a demon; Tobias knows now that this is not God's will, but does not know what else to do.

''You can leave again,'' the stranger says, hope glinting in his voice, ''and you can take me with you.''

The words are knives into Tobias' heart. Tobias carried that hope in his heart long ago, when Mother first left and Father had begun trying to instill the word of God into him. It was the fuel to the prayers he used to pray every night, the hope that had buoyed Tobias' naive, younger self.

Tobias learned that hope would only bring one down in the face of his father. One could never truly escape from him, not without breaking one of the Ten Commandments. If God truly believed that his father was right, God would have found a way to let Tobias escape. So Tobias stopped praying, and simply accepted God's will. After that, the pain wasn't as hard to bear. That was a lesson that the stranger still had yet to learn.

''Father will be angry,'' Tobias says, his voice firm in an attempt to dissuade the stranger.

''Not if he can't find us,'' the stranger insists, the hope in his voice unchanging.

''He always finds me.'' Tobias tries to make his voice abrupt, in another attempt to dash hope out of the stranger.

And that was true, too. The few times he had tried to run away, his father had found him. Because he had directly disobeyed the Fifth Commandment, his father had punished him even further.

Yet somehow, guilt still wells in his heart, and even higher than he ever thought it could. Because somehow, the hope in the stranger's voice makes Tobias believe that maybe he can leave this time, but is simply being too much of a weakling to.

''Tell me where we are,'' the stranger persists, ''and my friends, they'll come and they'll save us.''

This sounds extremely tempting to Tobias at first. But then he remembers that this stranger's friends are demons, and he goes back to getting the needle ready.

''We can't be saved,'' Tobias says, still focusing on the needle. The truth of it sloshes in his heart and makes it throb. Because sinners like them _can't_ be saved.

The stranger lets out a labored whimper. ''We can, we can,'' the stranger says, his voice now becoming desperate, ''I promise. If you tell me where we are, I'll save us both.''

Tobias knows that he cannot let this go on any longer. Tobias knows that the stranger's hope will only hurt him in the end, as his hope had. Tobias knows how powerless one is in the face of his father, and how futile it is to fight him.

''Listen to me,'' Tobias says, his voice gentle yet firm. ''It's not worth fighting.''

The hope finally leaves the stranger's eyes and fades once more to fear. The stranger looks at Tobias and then looks down at the needle, again letting out a whimper.

''Tell me it doesn't make it better,'' Tobias says, trying to make his voice soothing as he watches the stranger's jaw quiver.

The stranger gives Tobias a final glance of fear, and Tobias gives him a reassuring glance in return.

He then injects the needle, as the stranger gives out a series of whimpers. The stranger's head slumps back once more.

The next time Tobias comes to see the stranger, anticipation lights the stranger's eyes.

It may have taken him longer than it took Tobias but the stranger now hungers for the escape. The stranger wants it, needs it. He no longer fears it, but loves it.

He shudders in relief and desire as Tobias injects the needle this time, before slumping his head and falling unconscious.

When Charles' anger puts the stranger into a seizure and cuts off his air, Tobias is horrified. The stranger might have done wrong, but he doesn't deserve death.

''He was a sinner,'' Charles says, his voice harsh and uncaring.

''You haven't proven that,'' Tobias argues. The stranger didn't seem like a demon or a sinner to him while he was alive, just a vulnerable and scared man.

''They all are in the end.''

''God gave him to me for a reason.'' It had to be true. The stranger and him were just too similar for it not to be. God gave the stranger Tobias because He knew no one could know what the stranger went through better than Tobias did, so no one could help him more. If it weren't for Tobias, the stranger wouldn't have a chance to escape.

''Your work is done.'' Charles' voice is firm and deadly yet it doesn't stop Tobias.

''I can save him,'' he insists, because he cannot bear to think of the stranger dying. The stranger seemed too good to die; the stranger doesn't deserve any more pain. There had to have been a reason why the stranger survived as long as he did, why Tobias survived as long as he did. Maybe the stranger would have a chance to escape if he survived.

''How?'' Charles asks, his voice full of scorn and disgust, ''by breathing a killer's breath into his body?''

Fear and hurt crash inside Tobias, as they usually do when he confronts his father. He lets out a cry, and runs toward the cabin.

He doesn't want the stranger to die, and that somehow is stronger than the fear.

He begins performing CPR on the stranger, while praying internally to God that this man would live. The stranger did not deserve to die, considering he was innocent and that it was Tobias' fault he was there as long as he was.

When the stranger begins to gasp and opens his eyes, Tobias feels an immeasurable relief wash over him.

For the first time in his life, Tobias feels that he has done something right.

Tobias gives the stranger water when he sees the stranger next.

''Tobias, is that you?'' the stranger asks, as he takes a sip.

''Yes,'' he answers gravely. He suspects that the angel has tortured the stranger while Tobias was gone.

The stranger is sweaty and tired, and greedily drinks the water.

''Thank you,'' the stranger says hoarsely, as Tobias takes the water away.

The stranger looks up and is met with warm and caring eyes. Tobias knows that the stranger is hurt, and fears for his health. Tobias may have saved the stranger but fears he cannot do it again.

''You saved my life,'' the stranger says with a weary smile.

Tobias cannot meet the stranger's eyes, so instead looks down. Tobias only temporarily saved the stranger; as much as he hates to think about it, Tobias knows that the stranger will eventually die. ''I'm sorry.''

''Why?'' the stranger asks.

''He'll win in the end.'' As Tobias learned well from his childhood, his father always gets what he wants. And what he wants is the stranger dead, or at least hurt enough to the point that he will die.

Tobias looks away from the stranger, but hears his sigh of defeat. The stranger knows too that he will die, Tobias supposes.

''Tobias, I need to know something,'' the stranger says suddenly. ''It's important.''

Tobias looks up, surprised. He will do anything that the stranger wants that it in his power; he will answer anything the stranger wants him to answer, because he owes it to the stranger.

''Are we in a cemetery?'' the stranger asks.

Tobias nods, and the stranger smiles feebly.

''I used to come here to get high,'' Tobias admits.

''I was right,'' the stranger says, his smile widening.

''No one bothers you here,'' Tobias says. And it was true. No one came to stop him from escaping, not even his father. It was peaceful in the cemetery, tranquil and silent.

''I never told anyone about it,'' he adds quietly. That was true, too. His father may have discovered his addiction, but he never discovered his hiding place.

He pulls out the needle again, and injects the stranger. The stranger silently falls unconscious.

The final time Tobias goes to the stranger, he is out in the graveyard.

He has shot Charles, although Tobias finds a bullet in his own chest. This is a minor detail to him, though. All he can register is that Charles is gone and that he is free.

''You killed him,'' Tobias says with a smile.

''Tobias,'' the stranger whispers.

Tobias sees flashlights in the distance and hears a man's voice that is different than the stranger's.

He knows that he is dying and that the stranger is the cause of it, but he doesn't feel angry. Instead he feels relieved.

He immediately thinks of his mother, and of the last moment he and his father were happy. By leaving them for another man, she was the reason why Father was so frightening now; she was the reason why he hurt so. Tobias couldn't bring himself to hate her, though, because she was the only thing of love that he had ever known.

When Tobias was fifteen, Father discovered that she had died in a car accident two years before. Father said that adulterers didn't go to Heaven, but maybe she had repented. Maybe she had only gone away because of Father, but loved Tobias. Maybe she regretted not seeing him again.

''Do you think I'll get to see my mom again?'' Tobias asks hopefully. Tobias has not let himself hope in a long time.

''I'm sorry,'' the stranger whispers.

Tobias escapes and is for the first time truly freed. He smiles as his soul waves away, and the stranger reunites with his friends.

**A/N: This is my first Criminal Minds fanfic; I hope you enjoyed it and there's more coming. I would like to thank my awesome, amazing friend, Victoria, because she is the one who introduced me to Criminal Minds in the first place. She also happens to be the #1 Criminal Minds fan in history and she's the reason why this fanfic is so accurate to the show. Please review. **


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